Here’s a long update of what happened this week. Read as much of it as fits your fancy
I have Scottish Lit at 8:00 am on Tuesday and Thursdays. For me, 8am is inherently a difficult time to be awake, but when you have been deprived of sleep for as long and as consistently as I have…it was impossible. I have never understood the concept of falling asleep during class, it’s either too interesting or there is too much going on for it to have been a possibility for me. However, my performance this Tuesday as a student was pathetic.
Here are my notes on a normal day:
Not fantastic, but not too bad either. Probably a few spelling errors, but it’s not necessarily a class where you need to take notes in the first place.
Here are my notes from Tuesday (aka “A Study on Sleep Deprivation”):
You can see a progression of time. When I first came in, I just just frantically ridden my bike so I wouldn’t be late, still energized and my professor was talking. Then a group went up to present…and things got ugly. I desperately tried to stay awake by taking notes, but I would literally fall asleep mid-point or mid-word. Then, when I came out of it, I would try to finish the thought unsuccessfully. It was pathetic. I felt narcoleptic & helpless. I was literally trying as hard as I could to stay awake but couldn’t, even in motion. I was even pinching my leg underneath my desk. The group presentation wasn’t bad or anything, I was just so tired, and I felt awful because I didn’t want them to think I didn’t like their presentation.
Then you can tell when the professor started talking again and I was actually able to write again…for the most part.
Ok, it’s 9:30 pm on Thursday and most of the chaos is officially over for the week. Here are some of the things that happened this week:
01| Between Monday and Wednesday I only got 2.5 hours of sleep.In other words, I was awake for 41 hours at one point.
02| Finished a graphic design project which I am really proud of the design, however, my execution and the materials I choose turned out so badly I ended up being really upset with it. More on this later. (Oh, and I had to skip my econ class to finish it, which made me really sad because I am against class skipping!)
03| Spilled an entire cup of koolaid on my laptop. When I turned it over koolaid was actually pouring out of it. Luckily my roommates help me take of the keys immediately and it sat in a bag of rice for a while, an now it works again!— with a few sticky keys now, but whatever.
04| Decided to take a nap after senior seminar (and my apologies to the professor because at the point I probably looked like I was on several drugs and was falling a sleep every ten seconds). Just a nap because I had a large paper to write. However, I when I woke up for my alarm I was practically delirious and apologized to my empty room for the noise and turned it off. I ended up wake up at 4 am and finishing it at 6:30am.
05| Tried to take a the tiniest nap after that before class at 8, but ended up missing Scottish Lit. 🙁
06| Worked until an hour before a presentation. And during the 45 minutes before I left, prepared my entire speech.
07| Presented at the “English Matters” symposium which was actually a lot of fun and I’m sad that more people didn’t go. English matters! The people in the English department are the best kind of people.
Here’s the poster I made for it (I was on the last panel):
Anyway, I’m optimistic about the future. Come rain or shine, we must go on. Hope you have a pleasant week. Off to write a paper!